Knox County is set to award Layla Soliz a sum of $71,500 as a partial settlement after a lawsuit was filed because her mugshot was published without her hijab, as per details from her lead counsel Daniel Horwitz. Soliz, a practicing Muslim and Tennessee resident, asserts that wearing a hijab daily is a core part of her faith. Her lawsuit alleges that the Knox County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) violated this by requesting its removal for a booking photo and subsequently publishing the image, WATE reports.
Despite the settlement, Soliz continues to request that the county remove the unshielded image and revise its booking process. She references the KCSO policy, which states that photos with and without head coverings should be taken by an officer of the same gender, and that only the image with the head covering should be made public. Soliz was assured by an officer that the image without the hijab would not be published, but the wrong photo was released. One of her friends at the detention center overheard officers discussing the error, according to WBIR.
This issue highlights the legal implications of retaining uncovered booking photographs that may violate religious rights. Horwitz references a precedent from a previous case in the Eastern District of Virginia, where over $191,000 in attorney fees and costs were awarded after a sheriff's office failed to voluntarily remove such a booking image. This case illustrates the potential consequences of violations related to religious rights, according to a Knoxville Daily Sun article.
Horwitz highlights that while this settlement represents a "meaningful step toward accountability for violating Mrs. Soliz’s religious rights under state and federal law," the issue remains unresolved as Knox County continues to retain the photograph without a headscarf and opposes changing its policy to align with state and federal legal requirements, Soliz was originally arrested for a minor misdemeanor after participating in a "Nakba Day Vigil," where she and other activists were commemorating the displacement of Palestinians from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War; it is her belief, along with that of many other Muslim women that the hijab serves as an expression of their modesty and obedience to their faith, and the mishandling of her image without the headscarf reflects a significant disregard for this deeply personal aspect of her religious practice, WBIR further adds.
